[May 31, 2014](Reuters) - Police in Philadelphia
said on Friday they believe the same man is responsible for a string of
sexual assaults in Northeast Philadelphia that have grown increasingly
violent with each incident.

The three reported attacks, which began in late April, have all
occurred in the Mayfair neighborhood and the victims were all
walking alone down a city street when they were grabbed from behind
and dragged to a secluded place, police said.

"He's getting more and more violent with each attack and that has
got us on edge," Captain John Darby of the Philadelphia Police
Department's Special Victims Unit told a news conference.

"There's a good possibility that these crimes are being done by the
same offender," he said.

Police said that in all three attacks, the victims reported having a
knife or sharp object held to their throats. The most recent attack
happened Wednesday evening when a 20-year-old woman was knocked to
the ground and then forced behind a building where she was sexually
assaulted, police said.

The Mayfair area where the attacks have occurred is a middle-class
neighborhood with a large Irish-American population.